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Kirkgunzeon War Memorial
In 1918 the community of Kirkgunzeon raised funds to erect a permanent memorial to the soldiers connected to the parish who fell in the Great War. The Kirkgunzeon War Memorial was dedicated in July 1919, one of the earliest local war memorials to be erected. In recent years the lettering on the Memorial started to fade and several letters were missing, so it was agreed that the Memorial would be refurbished prior to the wreath laying ceremony and service to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice in 2018.
In the spirit of the original fundraising appeal to the community the trustees of Maxwell Memorial Hall launched an appeal for funds to support the restoration work in April 2018. The initial fundraising target of £330 was smashed with an impressive total of £1,057 raised by October. This meant that not only could the Memorial be restored, but the name of local man David John Smith Gillies could be added. Private Gillies served in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and died of his wounds in August 1916 whilst being held as a prisoner of war. His name appears on the Dumfries War Memorial, but he was born and raised in Kirkgunzeon. With the agreement of family, who still live in the area, it was felt to be appropriate that his name should appear on the War Memorial of his home village.
Parish Rolls of Honour
In addition to work on the Memorial the funds raised were used to conserve the Parish Rolls of Honour which were moved to Maxwell Memorial Hall after the Church closed in 2013. After over 100 years the original Kirkgunzeon Church of Scotland Roll of Honour, which was drawn up during World War I, was in poor condition and continuing to deteriorate. To preserve the document, the Hall trustees sought expert help and were advised to remove it from its frame and store it in acid free paper, away from light.
Research aiming to enhance the information on the original document was also carried out by local community historians Irene Bryson and Lynne Crichton. This was used to produce a new Centenary Roll. The original roll named 59 men (including some duplicates) and the research discovered additional men, with 86 names appearing on the new Roll. All these men were born or lived and worked in the Parish although some had moved on. It also includes details of their homes within the Parish to encourage a closer link between the current community and those who served in the Great War.
The original Roll has been placed behind the 2018 document inside the new frame to preserve it for the future, with a copy available to view on the rear of the frame.
The 2018 research was compiled by using the following resources:
- Stewartry Roll of Honour located in Castle Douglas Library
- British Newspaper Archives (BNA) online resources
- General Register Office for Scotland (GRoS) online resources - 1901 census, 1911 census, 1905 Valuation Roll, 1915 Valuation Roll, Birth records, Marriage Records
- Ewart Library, Dumfries - archives and local newspaper collections
- The 1911 Post Office Directory online resource
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWG) online resources
- Library and Archives Canada online resources
- The Scottish War Graves Project (part of The Scottish Military Research Group) online resources
- Ancestry.co.uk online genealogy resource
